When Carrefour, one of the largest food retailers in the world, expanded its presence of hypermarkets across three continents, they hired security system integrator UTI to establish loss prevention systems within their unique shopping environment. The security company met the challenge, providing one of the most secure hypermarkets, equipped with state-of-the-art video surveillance equipment from American Dynamics ™ . Created in 1959, Carrefour has grown from a single supermarket in France’s Haute-Savoie region to more than 11,080 stores in 29 countries. Hypervigilant Hypermarkets Carrefour comes to Romania stocking high tech security “We found it very easy to install and integrate the American Dynamics equipment with the other products,” Roxana Tudosescu UTI Systems

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Operations range from supermarkets stores and a variety of other outlets to convenience. But what Carrefour is known for above all else is the hypermarket. A hypermarket is, essentially, a super-sized supermarket that typically stocks some 70,000 items and has a sales ﬂ oor as big as 20,000 square meters or approximately 215,000 square feet. Carrefour introduced the concept to Europe in 1963, opening its ﬁ rst one in the south of Paris. The trend caught on and Carrefour hypermarkets sprang up across the continent. As they increasingly became part of daily life for many western Europeans, more stores opened in Latin America, Asia, and the South Paciﬁ c. But as of 1999, no one in Romania had yet seen a hypermarket—at least not on their home turf. Carrefour executives noticed the void, and the opportunity. So they devised a plan: open two hypermarkets a year in every Romanian city with a population of 300,000 or greater. Joining forces with their franchisee Hyparlo, they created Hiproma, a 50-50 joint venture to manage the effort. Seizing the Opportunity— and Securing It A crucial part of any retail endeavor is loss prevention. Shoplifting and employee theft or internal shrinkage can take a balance sheet from black to red, and often do. According to Jack Hayes, who conducts an annual retail theft survey, these are serious crimes that not only take a toll on retailers’ bottom-line proﬁ ts but also “hurt our economy, costing consumers higher prices at the cash register, and causing a loss of jobs when retailers are forced to close stores or even go out of business.” The problem affects merchants everywhere in Europe draining as much as 29 billion euros annually from shopkeepers’ coffers. And it’s especially severe in Romania. If Carrefour’s ambitious expansion into the Eastern European nation was to succeed, the new hypermarkets would require the toughest and tightest security available. Fabrice Besson, the

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